Understanding Chapter 718: How the Florida Condominium Act Governs Your Association

Jason Hamilton Mikes, JD, MBA
Founder & Managing Shareholder

• Published September 25, 2026
• Reviewed by Jason Hamilton Mikes, JD, MBA, September 26, 2026
• Florida Statutes as of July 1, 2026
• Applies to: Condominiums

Chapter 718 of the Florida Statutes, called the Condominium Act, is the law that brings a Florida condominium into existence and then tells the association how to run it. It sets the floor: the notices you must give, the records you must keep, the reserves you must fund, the votes you must take, and the rights owners hold against the board. Your declaration and bylaws build on top of that floor. They can never dig below it.

What the Condominium Act actually does

A condominium is not a kind of building. It is a form of ownership, and it exists only because a statute says it can. Chapter 718 is that statute. When a developer records a declaration of condominium that complies with the Act, the land is divided into units that can be individually owned and common elements that are owned by all the unit owners together, and an association is created to operate the whole of it.

That origin explains a great deal about how the chapter reads. Much of it is written to the developer, governing how a condominium is created, sold and eventually turned over to the owners. Once turnover has happened and the community is a few decades old, most of those provisions are history. What remains, and what a sitting board uses constantly, is the operational core.

The Act is also a consumer protection statute. Many of its provisions exist because owners were harmed and the Legislature responded: records access rights, election procedures, reserve requirements, limits on what the board may spend without a vote. Reading a provision with that purpose in mind usually tells you how a court or the Division will construe an ambiguity in it.

How the chapter is organized

Chapter 718 is divided into parts. Knowing which part you are in saves a great deal of time.

For the questions boards ask, the answer is in Part I more than nine times out of ten. Two sections in Part III matter routinely as well: § 718.301 on turnover, and § 718.303, which is the association's enforcement authority and the source of the power to fine and suspend.

The sections a board uses most

If you learn the location of ten provisions, you will be able to find the answer to most questions that arise at a board meeting.

• § 718.103 — definitions. Read this first whenever a provision turns on a defined term such as "voting interests," "common expenses" or "unit."
• § 718.111 — the association: its powers, the fiduciary duty of directors, insurance under subsection (11), official records under subsection (12), and financial reporting under subsection (13).
• § 718.112 — bylaws. This is the longest and most heavily amended section in the chapter. It holds board and owner meeting and notice rules, elections, director eligibility and education, budgets, reserves and the Structural Integrity Reserve Study, and recall.
• § 718.113 — maintenance and material alterations, plus hurricane protection, flags and electric vehicle charging.
• § 718.115 and § 718.116 — common expenses, assessments, and the association's lien and collection remedies.
• § 718.110 — amending the declaration.
• § 718.3026 and § 718.3027 — contract bidding requirements and director conflicts of interest.
• § 718.128 — electronic voting.
• § 718.1255 — mandatory arbitration and presuit mediation for certain disputes.
• § 718.303 — enforcement, fines and suspensions.

How the statute interacts with your documents

This is the point boards most often get backwards. The order of authority runs: Florida and federal law, then the declaration, then the articles of incorporation, then the bylaws, then the rules adopted by the board. A provision lower on that list yields to anything above it.

Chapter 718 sits at the top, and it operates in two different ways depending on the provision. Some provisions are mandatory floors: the association must do this regardless of what the documents say, and a contrary provision in the declaration is void. Others are defaults that apply only if the documents are silent, and the documents are free to set something different. The statute usually signals which is which with language such as "unless otherwise provided in the declaration."

There is also a bridge provision worth knowing: § 718.112(2) deems the bylaws to include the statutory requirements, whether or not the bylaws were ever amended to add them. A board that reads only its 1984 bylaws is reading an incomplete document.

Whether later amendments to Chapter 718 reach an older declaration can turn on so-called Kaufman language — a clause saying the documents are subject to the Act "as amended from time to time." Where that language is present, later statutory changes are generally treated as incorporated. Two limits matter. Kaufman is a contract-construction decision about incorporation by reference. The declaration picks up the statute because the declaration's own words adopt it, and the case does not make statutory amendments retroactive. The court confined the effect further in a footnote: such provisions "would only be incorporated to the extent that they were valid," and the statutory section at issue "could only be adopted prospectively." Where the language is absent, the analysis is more complicated, and it is a question for counsel rather than for the board. Our guide on reading your governing documents covers this in more detail.

Who enforces Chapter 718

Three different mechanisms enforce the Act, and they do not overlap neatly.

1. The Division of Florida Condominiums, Timeshares, and Mobile Homes, within the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, regulates condominium associations under § 718.501. It investigates owner complaints, issues warning letters and corrective orders, imposes civil penalties, and administers the mandatory arbitration program. Condominium associations must also maintain an online account with the Division under § 718.501(3).
2. Owners enforce the Act directly. Section 718.303(1) lets an owner sue the association for damages or injunctive relief for a failure to comply with the Act, the declaration, the articles, the bylaws or the rules, and the prevailing party is entitled to attorney's fees. That fee-shifting provision is what gives a records request or a notice defect real financial consequence.
3. The association enforces the Act and the documents against owners and occupants, through the same section, and through fines and suspensions under § 718.303(3).

For most disputes over the use of a unit or the common elements, over meetings and elections, and over records, a party must go through Division arbitration or presuit mediation under § 718.1255 before filing suit. Knowing which track a dispute falls into is often the first strategic decision in the matter.

The chapter changes every year

Since 2021 the Legislature has amended Chapter 718 in every regular session, and several of those amendments were substantial rather than technical. The Surfside collapse produced SB 4-D in 2022 and SB 154 in 2023, which created milestone inspections and the Structural Integrity Reserve Study and restricted the ability to waive reserves. HB 1021 in 2024 rewrote director education, added criminal penalties for records violations, and lowered the website posting threshold. HB 913 in 2025 raised the reserve threshold to $25,000, extended SIRS deadlines, allowed associations to borrow for milestone and SIRS work, authorized video-conference board meetings with full voting rights, and added an e-mail ballot option.

Two practical consequences follow. First, subsection numbering moves. Director education, for example, sat at § 718.112(2)(d)5.b. in the 2024 edition and sits at § 718.112(2)(d)5.b. in the 2025 and 2026 editions, because a new subparagraph was inserted above it. A citation copied from an older form or article may now point at the wrong provision even though the rule itself has not changed.

Second, a policy the board adopted two years ago may no longer comply. Reserve waiver language, records response procedures, meeting notice templates and director certification forms all need periodic review against the current text rather than against the version in the association's files.

The 2026 regular session was unusually quiet for community associations. The omnibus bill, HB 657, passed the House and died in Senate Rules. What did pass was a rewrite of Chapter 617, the Not For Profit Corporation Act, which applies to associations as corporations and made conforming changes to several Chapter 718 provisions. Our legislative updates section tracks each session.

How to use the statute when a question comes up

A workable method for a board member or manager:

1. Read the current statute text online rather than a summary. The Legislature publishes it free at leg.state.fl.us, and the flsenate.gov version lets you compare editions year by year.
2. Check the history line at the end of the section. It lists every session law that amended it. If you see a chapter law from the last two years, assume something you remember about the provision has changed.
3. Read the definitions in § 718.103 for any term the provision turns on.
4. Then read your declaration and bylaws on the same subject, and ask whether the statute permits the documents to vary from it.
5. Write down what you conclude and why, and put the citation in the board packet. That record is worth a great deal later if the decision is questioned.

Where the answer affects money, an owner's rights, or a deadline that cannot be undone, the last step is a call to counsel rather than a decision at the table. The cost of the call is almost always smaller than the cost of an election that must be rerun or a special assessment that must be rescinded.

Contact Hamilton Mikes

Hamilton Mikes advises condominium boards and managers throughout Southwest Florida on the day to day application of Chapter 718, and reviews governing documents, policies and forms against the current statute. Call 239-594-7227 or visit our Regulatory Compliance page.